Do Fish Drink Water?

by Bill McLain

  Bissell designed a “carpet sweeper” with a knob that adjusted the brushes to compensate for variations in floor surface and a box to capture the dust.

  The carpet sweeper didn’t catch on until the mid-1800s when many companies started producing them and giving them distinctive names such as “Weed,” “Boston,” “Welcome,” “Whirlwind,” and “Lady’s Friend.” They wanted to make the consumer feel that the lady of the house would be a superior mother and housewife.

  Unfortunately, the carpet sweepers didn’t perform well enough. It was up to a British bridge builder, Booth, to make the first practical vacuum cleaner. Booth sent vans to houses and used his machine to suck the dust out via long tubes. While earlier vacuums simply blew the dust around, Booth’s machine sucked the dust through a filter-the same method used in today’s vacuum cleaners.

  In 1905 a small, portable, electric vacuum cleaner was developed by Murry Spangler, who improved on Booth’s machine. U.S industrialist W.H. Hoover manufactured it. He called his company the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company, which became the Hoover Company in 1922.

  Sold door-to-door in the 1940s, vacuum cleaners finally became widely accepted in the 1950s and many well-known companies such as Regina and Eureka were formed.

  Even today, you can buy a Hoover or Eureka vacuum cleaner.

  Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (Please don’t ask why the chicken crossed the road.)

  There are two answers, depending on whether you are a creationist or an evolutionist.

  If you are a creationist, you believe that God created man and all of the animals on the earth. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for God to create an egg, so the chicken must have come first. After all, if God created the egg first, there would be no hen to hatch it or to take care of the baby chick once it was hatched.

  If you are an evolutionist, you believe that animals evolve into different species over time. Therefore, the chicken must have evolved from a former chickenlike creature. At some point in time this creature laid an egg that hatched into a modern chicken. It couldn’t have been a chicken egg, because there was no such thing as a chicken yet. The first chicken egg could only have been laid by the first chicken.

  Therefore, it doesn’t matter if you are a creationist or an evolutionist, the answer is the same. The chicken came before the egg.

  In fact there is an old proverb that says He who wants eggs must endure the clucking of the hen.”

  FACTOIDS

  The color of the egg yolk depends on what the hen has been eating. In this country, adding artificial colors is not allowed so some producers add marigold petals to the hen’s food to create a more orange yolk.

  Hindus do not eat eggs because they believe them to be a valuable source of life.

  Some religions believe that in the beginning there was a master egg. The creator of the universe hatched from this egg and then produced other eggs from which all living things came, each from its own egg.

  The color of an eggshell has nothing to do with nutritional value but is dependent on the breed of the chicken. Brown-feathered chickens, such as Rhode Island Reds, lay brown eggs; white-feathered chickens, such as White Leghorns, lay white eggs. Brown eggs are often more expensive simply because brown hens tend to be larger and require more food.

  The number on an egg carton is the date when the eggs were packed. For example, a 3 indicates January 3 while a 365 indicates December 31.

  In China and Russia eggs were valued so much that replicas were carved from precious stones and set with valuable gems.

  To prevent a hen from laying her eggs in a hiding place, a natural or artificial egg can be placed in the nest to entice the hen to lay her eggs there. From this practice comes the expression “nest egg,” which means putting aside money for future use.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Columbus’s ships transported the first chickens to this country. They were a strain that had originated in Asia and were considered more valuable for their eggs than for their meat because they laid eggs year-round.

  From this small beginning a mammoth industry has evolved. There are now approximately 240 million laying hens in the United States producing approximately 66 billion eggs a year (meaning that the average hen lays an egg 275 days out of the year).

  What is the correct way to eat an Oreo cookie? (To dunk or not to dunk, that the question.)

  There are many correct ways to eat an Oreo cookie. It really seems to be a matter of taste (pardon the pun). Some people plop the whole cookie into their mouths at once. Some nibble on the cookie slowly so it doesn’t break and drop crumbs. Others dunk their cookies in milk, then take a bite. Many separate the cookie, lick off the cream, and then eat the cookie (these people are called “twisters”). We’ve heard of one woman who eats only the cream and then gives the rest of the cookie to either her dog or her husband.

  In 1912 consumers wanted an English-style biscuit (cookies are called “biscuits” in England) and the Oreo cookie was produced to meet this demand. For the first three years, consumers had their choice of either vanilla or lemon cream. Now only vanilla cream is available. An Oreo cookie is 29 percent cream and 71 percent cookie.

  Who coined the word “Oreo” is unknown; in fact the name itself is shrouded in mystery. One theory is that someone took the letters “RE” out of “cream” and placed it between two letter “O’s” which represent the two parts of the cookie. Some think the name came from the French word or, meaning “gold,” while others think it came from the Greek word oreo, which means “hill” or “mountain.”

  Not knowing what the name Oreo means has not bothered the cookie-hungry public. The Oreo is the most popular cookie in the United States and over 9 billion are eaten every year (the chocolate chip cookie is a close second at 7 billion a year).

  FACTOIDS

  Of the people who dunk their Oreo cookies, 82 percent dunk them in milk and 2 percent dunk them in peanut butter. Others dunk in hot chocolate or some other drink.

  It takes 90 minutes to make a single Oreo cookie and each cookie has 90 ridges.

  Each year there is an “Oreo stacking contest” held at 15,000 supermarkets throughout the country. Contestants compete in two age groups (7 and under and 8 to 12) to see how many cookies they can stack in 30 seconds. The national stacking finals are held in Universal Studios, Florida.

  If all of the cream filling used to produce a one-year supply of Oreos were used to decorate wedding cakes, there would be enough to decorate all of the wedding cakes made in the United States for the next two years.

  Over 40 percent of consumers dunk Oreo cookies all of the time. If everyone dunked every cookie they ate, cows would have to produce over 42 million extra gallons of milk just to satisfy the additional dunkers.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Authorities believe that the earliest cookies were made in seventeenth-century Persia (now Iran), which was one of the first countries to produce sugar. The word “cookie,” however, comes from the Dutch word koekje. It is pronounced “kook-yah” and means “little cake.” The Germans call cookies keks, and the Italians call them biscotti.

  One of the most popular cookies in the United States is the chocolate chip cookie. Most people don’t realize that it is a relatively modern cookie and wasn’t created until 1930. That was the year that Ruth and Kenneth Wakefield bought the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.

  One day Ruth Wakefield was making cookies when she discovered she had run out of baker’s chocolate. A friend, Andrew Nestle, had give her some semisweet chocolate bars so she broke them up and mixed them with the dough. She assumed the chocolate and dough would mix together, resulting in all-chocolate cookies. But the chocolate didn’t mix and the baked cookies were full of the broken chocolate pieces. She named her new creation “Toll House cookies.”

  Although the original Toll House Inn burned down on New Year’s Eve in 1984, most of us will still be eating many Toll House cookies in the years to come.

  What can I do
with the small slivers of soap left over in the shower? (Use them up, wear them out, make them do, or Without.)

  There are at least four methods for saving those slivers of leftover soap.

  The first is to simply moisten the sliver, then moisten a new bar of soap. Place the sliver on the new bar and press firmly around its edges to attach it. After a few uses it will become part of the new bar.

  A second method is to drop the slivers into a jar with some water and let them sit for a period of time. Eventually the water will melt the soap and you can use the mixture as a liquid soap or shampoo. (For faster results, mix the water and soap slivers in a blender.)

  Another method is to put all of the leftover soap slivers into a mesh bag. When you think you’ve collected enough, tie the ends of the bag and slip the top of the bag over an outdoor water faucet handle. It can help at cleanup time after you’ve been gardening or doing some other outdoor chore. It’s also handy for taking on camping trips.

  Soap has a long and interesting history. Although soap making was recorded as long ago as 2800 B.C., soap was not commonly used for cleaning until thousands of years later. Ancient Greeks and Romans rubbed their bodies with olive oil and sand and scraped off the mixture with a wooden scraper called a “strigil.” Although Romans bathed, they added oils and other ingredients to the water, not soap.

  FACTOIDS

  Around 2000 B.C. soap was used as a medication for wounds, but not for cleansing.

  Prior to the eighteenth century soap was used primarily to do laundry because personal cleanliness was not a social custom up until then. In the eighteenth century water was thought to be a “magical” fluid and bathing became popular as a medical treatment. As bathing became more acceptable, so did soap.

  The B. J. Johnson Company made a soap consisting of only palm oil and olive oil. The soap, called “Palmolive,” was so popular that the company was renamed after it.

  William Procter and James Gamble made candles and soap and sold their products house to house out of a wheelbarrow. Their company, Procter & Gamble, introduced Ivory soap to the public in 1879.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Children are often much more interested in soap bubbles than in soap itself. Although bubbles are a part of nature, soap bubble blowing didn’t become popular until the nineteenth century and was limited to bubble pipes until the early 1940s. It was then that a chemical company, Chemtoy, started bottling bubble solution. Today, bubble solution is one of the best-selling toys in the world.

  In recent years bubble blowing has become quite exotic. David Stein of New York created the biggest bubble ever blown, 50 feet long and 2 feet in diameter. An entertainer, Professor Bubbles, has actually encased five people at one time in a gigantic bubble. People have blown bubbles of various shapes, including square bubbles, and bubble-making displays are now in many science museums.

  More questions? Try these websites.

  USELESS INFORMATION

  http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/contents.html

  Visit this site for over 60 true stories, such as the woman who survived the sinking of the Titanic and then survived two other shipwrecks.

  THIS ONE CAN DRIVE YOU CRAZY

  http://complete-access.com/puzzle.html

  Have you ever seen the quiz that asks “What does 16 = O in a P mean?” The answer is “16 ounces in a pound.” This site has 30 of these curious questions. If you don’t know the answer, just click on the question to find out.

  Religion

  Who are the Shi’i Muslims and what do they believe? (The Five Pillars of Islam.)

  A Muslim i a follower of the Islamic religion. There are two major branches of Islam. Most Muslims are Sunnites who follow the orthodox faith, while a small minority are Shi’ites, followers of the only major sect outside the orthodox Muslim religion. Shi’ites were a political faction in the early days of Islam. They supported ‘Ali, a son-in-law of Muhammad and the spiritual and temporal leader of the Muslims. ‘Ali was killed striving to maintain his authority. Over time, the Shi’ites created a religious movement that sought to maintain the authority of ‘All’s descendants. The majority of Muslims, the Sunnites, preferred to accept the authority of any ruler who maintained the religion and kept order in the Islamic world.

  The Shi’i Muslims believe that an exemplary leader, or “imam,” was transformed into a mystical being who was a manifestation of God as well as the primordial light that gave true knowledge to man. Of the twelve imams, the last was Muhammad, who disappeared in the ninth century. Today the Shi’i holy men interpret law and doctrine while waiting for the end of time when the imam will return to dispense truth and justice throughout the world.

  Although the Shi’ites believe that man is fallible and truth can come only from the imam, the more practical Sunnites believe that the consensus of the Islamic community is a valid source of both knowledge and decision making.

  In contrast to the Sunnites, the Shi’ites believe in free will and the ability of humans to know the difference between good and evil.

  FACTOIDS

  Muslims believe in one God, Allah, and that Muhammad was Allah’s prophet. The name of the religion, Islam, means “submission to God’s will.”

  Islam is the second largest religion in the world and is the major religion in over 48 countries. In the United States, it is the third largest after Christianity and Judaism. Islam is also one of the fastest-growing religions in the world.

  Muslims believe that there were many prophets in the past including Adam, Noah, Moses, and Jesus. They believe that Muhammad was the last prophet to receive a revelation from God in the form of the Koran, or Book of God.

  Although it is historically younger than Judaism and Christianity, Muslims consider Islam to be the oldest religion and one that corrects the corrupted versions of the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Islam divides all people into two main groups.

  The first group consists of those who possess divine books, or books inspired by God. This group includes Christians (the Bible), Jews (the Torah), and Zoroastrians (the Avesta). People in this group are called “People of the Book.”

  The second group includes any religion not based on divine revelation. People in this group are called “heathens.”

  Although it is surprising to many, Muslims are quite tolerant toward “People of the Book.” Even when conquered by the Muslims, Jews and Christians were given freedom of worship and were also well protected from harm.

  The “Five Pillars” of Islam are strict rules that every Muslim must follow. They are:

  Profession of faith. There is no God but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.

  Daily worship. Muslims must pray five times a day.

  Giving of alms. Unlike other religions that require tithing on a person’s income, Islam requires Muslims to tithe on their accumulated wealth.

  Annual fasting. Once a year, during the entire month of Ramadan, Muslims must fast from dawn to dusk while abstaining from food, drink, and sex.

  Pilgrimage. All adults who are physically and financially able must make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once during their lifetime.

  Although Islam is one of the three major religions in the United States, it is probably the one most misunderstood by most Americans.

  When did the Roman Catholic Church begin using the calendar we use today? (A red-letter day!)

  The calendar we use today (known as the Gregorian calendar because it was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII) replaced the former Julian calendar in 1582. Within a year it was adopted by most Catholic countries but was not adopted in England until 1752, in China until 1912, in Russia until 1918, and in Greece until 1923. Most Muslim countries do not use this calendar.

  The problem with the former Julian calendar was its inaccuracy. It calculated the year as being 365¼ days long while it is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds long. Because of this, the calendar lost a day each century. When Pope Gregor
y instituted the new calendar, the Julian calendar was already 14 days off.

  Although the Gregorian calendar kept leap years for the most part, it eliminated leap years occurring at the century mark unless the century is exactly divisible by four. Thus, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 will be a leap year.

  FACTOIDS

  The names of our months are derived from Roman names. The first six months are named after gods (Janus, Mars, Aprilis, Maia, and Juno) or festivals (Februa), the next two months are named after emperors (Julius and Augustus), and the last four are simply the Latin names for seven, eight, nine, and ten (septem, octo, novem, and decem).

  Only three Roman names remain for our days of the week: Saturday (Saturn’s day), Sunday (Sun’s day), and Monday (Moon’s day). The rest are named after gods of Norse mythology: Tiu, the god of war (Tiu’s day), Wodin, the supreme deity (Wodin’s day), Thor the god of thunder (Thor’s day), and Frigg, the wife of Woden (Frigg’s day).

  When dividing time we use both natural and artificial systems. Natural divisions are the day (time it takes the earth to rotate once on its axis), the month (time it takes the moon to complete its phase cycle), and year (the time it takes the earth to orbit the sun). Hours and weeks are purely artificial. In fact, some ancient societies had weeks of eight, ten, or thirteen days.

  After the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, it was common to mark holy days in red letters on church calendars to note that they were special days. Because any day that had a red letter was significant, the phrase “red-letter day” came to mean any day of special meaning.