In 1920, a candy store owner by the name of Christian Kent Nelson had a customer. The customer was a young boy who was torn between buying ice cream or chocolate, with only enough money to buy one. Nelson noticed this and decided there was only way to solve this conundrum.
He created a bar of ice cream coated by melted chocolate, which he called “I-Scream Bars”, now known as Eskimo Pies. It was an instant hit as children could buy both chocolate and ice cream for the same amount of money.
It is a common chemical fact that water is flavourless and odourless. However, most people will know that water “tastes” subtly different each time.
Taste is composed of information from taste buds on the tongue, combined with the sense of smell from your nose. Although water itself has no flavour or smell, it has many things dissolved in it such as gases and minerals that can be tasted.
This is why tap water can taste bad due to the chlorine used to treat it, or metals such as copper that have come off the pipes.
It is also well known that temperature affects the taste of water. The ideal temperature is between 10~17°C, where oxygen saturation is sufficient, giving the water a “refreshing” taste. Any hotter and the oxygen escapes, giving the water a flat taste, just like distilled water. Warm water also causes the brain to think it is saliva or mucus, sometimes producing an uncomfortable sensation. Any colder, the tongue is numbed and it loses its ability to taste.
When making tea, the ideal temperature is 70~80°C. A simple way to achieve this is by leaving a cup of boiled water for a minute or two before putting the teabag in. This is the temperature when the dissolving of the various chemicals in tea leaves is optimal. If it is too hot, bitter-tasting tannins and catechins are released in excess, whereas if it is too cool, not enough dissolving occurs.
Fire has been the single most useful tool in the history of mankind – something that truly separates us from other animals. Yet, when stranded in the wild, most people are incapable of making fire as the comfort of technology has robbed us of the skill.
Obviously the easiest method is a lighter or matches.
The next easiest method is striking a flint with a knife, piece of steel or another flint. However, flints are not easy to recognise in nature unless you have experience. The following methods use minimum equipments that can often be found in the wild.
Note that you must have dry tinder to catch the spark and kindling to start the fire. Tinder is any easily combustible material that is light and fluffy, so that it quickly burns up after catching the spark.
There are two main methods: sunlight and friction.
Sunlight can be focused to create a spot of intense heat. This is a phenomenon even children use to burn things (such as insects). Instead of a magnifying glass, you can disassemble a camera to take the lens out, or use a plastic bag filled with water to make a crude convex lens.
The other method involves rubbing two pieces of wood rapidly. There are many ways to do this, with some methods being easier and faster.
The most crude method is the hand drill, often the first thing people associate to firemaking. This is when you simply rub a wooden stick in a notch in a fire board (larger piece of wood). Do this by spinning the shaft between your two palms in a fast motion. The tinder is put where it is being rubbed so that it starts burning when enough heat builds.
This is actually surprisingly tiring and hard to make fire with, so an improved method called the bow drill is used more often. This uses the same methods, but instead of your hands, you make a bow and wrap the bowstring around the shaft. This lets you spin the shaft with long forward-and-backward motions, lessening the burden. Putting a piece of wood or rock on top of the stick also prevents hurting the supporting hand.
Lastly, the fire plough method can be used. Here a groove is cut into a fire board, and a long stick is rubbed along it in a ploughing motion. The hot charcoal made is transferred to the tinder.
Once the tinder is smouldering, blow into it or swing the tinder to aerate it, fuelling the fire. This will cause the tinder to light up, which can be put in the kindling to start a fire. Slowly feed the fire with firewood (too much and you will smother it) while giving it plenty of air.
Now, you have warmth, light and hot food.
Answers after the break.
(Source: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs50/i/2009/288/5/4/Matchsticks_by_oh_yesh.jpg)
Continue reading “Matchsticks”
The creator made the Lamb, but he also made the Tyger.
In this world, there is no light without darkness. No good without evil. No life without death. The Lamb represents innocence, Christ and aesthetic beauty, while the Tyger represents evil, the Devil and primal ferocity.
An all-powerful deity that created the world; if he exists, then all rules of this universe were devised by his design. So why did he – the supposedly loving, benevolent maker – create these dualities? What god would make such a monstrosity, as beautiful as it is, that is the Tyger?
And how is it that we are both a Lamb and a Tyger at the same time?
(Both The Lamb and The Tyger by William Blake after the break)
The Lamb
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb.
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!~ William Blake
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?~ William Blake
Happiness is:
Finding a pencil that’s been chewed,
Telling the time, learning to whistle,
Tying your shoe, for the very first time,
Playing the drums, in your own school band.
Happiness is:
Two kinds of ice cream, pizza with sausage,
A warm blanket, a warm puppy,
Knowing a secret,
Walking hand in hand.
Happiness is:
Climbing a tree, five different crayons,
Catching a firefly, and setting him free,
Being alone every now and then,
Coming home again.
Happiness is:
Having a sister,
Sharing a sandwich, getting along,
Singing together when day is through,
Those who sing with you.
Happiness is:
Morning and Evening,
Daytime and nighttime,
Anyone, and anything at all,
That is loved by you.
~ Paraphrased from Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz
A shrew is a small rodent, similar in size to a rat, that has many fascinating characteristics.
Funnily enough, this animal has a notorious name in history. Ancient Egyptians considered shrews the spirits of darkness and the English believed that if a shrew ran over a lying animal, the animal would suffer great pain. The name shrew comes from the Middle Age English word shrewe, which meant “evil” or “scolding person”.
This is probably attributable to the putrid smell a shrew makes when threatened, and its poisonous bite.
Despite its tiny figure, the shrew has the greatest surface-area-to-weight ratio out of any mammal on the face of the Earth. Because of this, they also have a high heat expenditure, meaning they have to eat constantly to replenish the energy. This means that they sometimes die from starvation during prolonged naps.
Also, they have an extremely high heart rate, averaging about 700 beats per minute. When they are frightened, the heart rate can spike leading to cardiac arrest. For example, shrews are known to die from being frightened by the sound of thunder.
An animal that dies if it naps too much or when thunder strikes – the shrew is a very sad animal.
There once lived a Buddhist monk by the name of Great Master Wonhyo(원효대사) in the kingdom of Silla (during the Three Kingdoms period of Korea). At the age of 45, he set out to the country of Tang (modern day China) to further his understanding of Buddhism. During his travel, he decided to rest in front of a grave when night fell. In the middle of the night, he woke up feeling thirsty and searched for a drink. He found a bowl full of water in the complete darkness and drank it quickly to quench his thirst. He thought to himself “How lucky I am, to find a bowl of such sweet water.” and went back to sleep.
When morning came, he checked to see if there was still water in the bowl. He then realised that the bowl was actually a skull, and that the water was stagnant, putrid water that had collected in it. Realising that he drank the vile liquid from the skull, the monk started throwing up. But then, he realised that in the darkness, he drank from the skull with no problem, and even thought that the drink was sweet and refreshing. To quote:
Objects and rules are only born from the mind; a dead mind is no better than a skull. Buddha’s Three Commandments originate from the mind, everything is born from knowledge. What could I ask for more when I have a mind?
Thus, the Great Master Wonhyo understood the way of Ilche Yushimjo (일체유심조/一切唯心造/“The mind is the origin of everything” – the key principle of Hwaumgyung, an important Buddhist text). He turned back and returned to Silla, where he devoted his life to spreading Buddhism to the people.
Any sadness or frustration can be dissipated if you look back on it. Depending on how you see the world, it can be either beautiful or tragic.
The following is a list, based on 2011 standards (world population 6.9 billion), of the most populous countries in the world:
In 1907, a physician called Duncan MacDougall tried to scientifically prove the existence of the human soul. He weighed patients dying from tuberculosis at the time of death and studied the change in body mass. After observing the death of six patients, he noted that the body mass lightens at the time of death, which he attributed to the soul leaving the dead body. He published the official average mass of the soul as 21 grams.
Unfortunately, this experiment was complete nonsense. MacDougall failed to use the scientific method. The tiny sample size of six patients, the broad range of weight loss (21 was an arbitrary number he chose and was not even the proper mean mass) and the lack of control in the study environment are some of the major flaws of the experiment procedure. In fact, it is more likely the change in body mass was due to the many changes that occur post-mortem. For example, the lungs recoil and breathe out air, moisture escapes the body and as the sphincters relax, excrements are expelled.
Many people still believe the urban myth that the soul has an objective weight of 21 grams (possibly augmented by the movie 21 grams). Another interesting fact is that MacDougall also experimented on dogs (except instead of using dying dogs, he killed them himself). He found that dogs lose no weight when dying and thus claimed that dogs have no soul.
