The Incorruptible Saints!

Saint Bernadette, who was born into a poor family in 1844. She suffered greatly from sicknesses and diseases throughout her life. (In photo, best example of Incorruptibles)
The incorruptibles are a handful of Catholic Saints who have died throughout
the years, yet their bodies, or parts of their dead bodies, will not decay or surrender to decomposition as a normal body would. One human relic even dates back to the year 1381, the head of Saint Catherine of Siena. These bodies had not gone through any embalming or mummification methods to prevent them from decomposition, yet their bodies, or some parts of their bodies, remain intact.
It is said that many of the incorruptibles bodies died from violent matters or harsh diseases. A lot of the bodies had been buried regularly within damp conditions, to be exhumed on a far later date. When these bodies were finally exhumed, a lot of them had their clothes disintegrated from bad burial conditions, yet their bodies remained the same, and sometimes looked as if they were still alive, or had just passed on.
A lot of these saints or blessed people had harsh lives as well. For example, the "Blessed Margaret of Castello" was born a blind, crippled dwarf. After being born she was disowned by her parents who happened to be the Lords in a small village in Italy. Due to her limbs not being the same length, she developed a limp, which later advanced her into a hunchback. Margaret was allowed to roam the castle where her parents lived under the care of the servants, but she could not make contact with her parents. Later in life she was thrown in a custom made cell by her parents for years

The Predictions of Nostradamus

In his own day Nostradamus was acknowledged as the greatest seer alive, and even today he is often labeled as the most important prophet of European civilization. Many of his predictions, which were made public in the 1550s, appear to have come true. Nostradamus accurately foretold and gave the date of the Great Fire of London (1666). In another prediction, he noted that "Pasteur will be celebrated as a godlike figure." He prophesied that a man named Franco would cause a civil war in Spain. Another prophecy stated that an Austrian-born man named "Hister" (Hitler) would lead Germany in a great war but that "most of the battlefield will be against him." Nostradamus's uncanny ability to describe events and give names and dates for happenings that occurred nearly 400 years after his death makes it impossible to dismiss him as a charlatan.

In 1547 Nostradamus began to record his visions. Writing in verse, he composed four-line stanzas which were grouped into sets of 100 called "centuries." In these prophetic poems, he utilized puns, anagrams, scientific jargon, and Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and Celtic words. Supposedly, Nostradamus deliberately made his prophecies cryptic, because he thought it was dangerous to give people too clear a picture of the future and because he did not want to attract the attention of the agents of the Inquisition. 

In 1555 he published his poetic predictions in a book entitled Centuries, which was an immediate best-seller, read throughout Europe. In 1558 he published an enlarged, second edition of Centuries, which was dedicated to King Henry II of France but which prophesied that king's death. In 1559 Henry II was accidentally killed in a jousting match when a lance pierced the visor of his golden helmet and wounded him in the eyes and throat. Nostradamus had predicted that Henry II "in a field of combat" would have "his eyes pierced in their golden cage" and would die "a cruel death" from "two wounds in one." 

After the fulfillment of this prediction, Nostradamus's reputation as a seer soared. Deeply interested in the occult, Queen Catherine de Medicis, Henry II's widow, asked Nostradamus to come to Paris and live at the royal court. In Paris, he became the friend and adviser and, possibly, the lover of Queen Catherine. Most of Parisian society claimed that he was a divinely inspired genius, while the remainder considered him a fake or, even worse, a sorcerer. His predictions influenced politics, for rulers and diplomats searched through them for hints of coming events. After several years in Paris, Nostradamus was forced to return home to Salon because of gout in the joints of his legs. 

On the night of July 1, 1566, his pupil Chavigny bid Nostradamus good night, to which the old man replied, "Tomorrow at sunrise I shall not be here." The next morning he was found dead at his workbench. He was entombed in the Chapel of St. Martha in Salon, in an upright position, because he did not want anyone to walk on his bones. Secretly, Nostradamus had arranged to have a metal plaque buried with him. In 1700, when his coffin was opened in order to move his remains to a newly built tomb, the metal plaque was discovered resting on his skeleton. On it was inscribed the date 1700.

To Sleep and Dream...

Sleep...
Everybody needs sleep, but as people get older they need less sleep. Newborn babies sleep 17 to 18 hours a day. Dogs sleep, cats sleep, and you sleep. All mammals and birds sleep. Scientists are not sure if fish, reptiles, and insects sleep. Big animals sleep less, and small animals sleep more. Elephants and giraffes sleep only 2 to 4 hours a day. Bats, opossums, and armadillos sleep 18 hours a day or more! Even kids need more sleep than grownups. A newborn baby sleeps 17 to 18 hours a day. A 10-year-old needs about 10 hours of sleep a night. Grownups need between six and nine hours of sleep a night. Some people need more sleep than others.

WHY DO WE HAVE TO SLEEP?

Scientists do not know for sure why you sleep. They do have some ideas. Safety could be one reason for sleep. People and other animals might sleep because it keeps them safe at night. It’s hard to see in the dark. Enemies could sneak up and attack animals that are wandering in the darkness. Most mammals and birds go to trees, underground dens, or nests at night. Prehistoric people went into caves or other shelters. They covered up with furs and fell asleep. You go into your home at night and snuggle up in bed. Sleep might also help your body work better. Things go wrong if you do not get enough sleep. It is hard to think and work and play unless you get plenty of sleep.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP?

Scientists have learned a lot about what happens when you lie down, close your eyes, and fall asleep. They study people in sleep labs. Sometimes your eyeballs move back and forth while you’re asleep. They move fast. Scientists call this kind of sleep REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement. Your body may twitch during REM sleep. Your brain is also very busy during REM sleep. It is almost as busy as when you are awake. What do you think your brain is doing? Here’s a clue: You dream during REM sleep. There is another kind of sleep. Your eyeballs do not move. Scientists call this NREM sleep. NREM stands for nonrapid eye movement. Your brain is not very busy during NREM sleep. You go back and forth between REM and NREM sleep all night long.

WHY DO WE DREAM?

Scientists have done many studies on dreams. They think your senses may have a lot to do with dreams. In dreams, you see and hear things. Dreaming is not like thinking about things. You have feelings during dreams. You may feel happy or angry. You feel fear if you have a nightmare. Your memories may have something to do with your dreams. Dreams are often like stories that stop before they are finished.

DO DREAMS MEAN ANYTHING?

People in ancient times looked for meaning in dreams. The ancient Egyptians believed dreams could tell the future. Some psychologists think that dreams show what people feel deep inside. They ask people to talk about their dreams. Some scientists think that dreams have no meaning. They think that dreams just come from nerve signals in your brain. Other scientists think that dreams are important for memory. They may help your brain sort out what to remember and what to forget.

courtesy of : http://onlineroom.blogspot.com

Great Facts

Five thousandths of a millimeter is the tolerance of accuracy at the LEGO mould factories .

2.5 cans of Spam are consumed every second in the United States .

In 1836, Mexican General Santa Anna held an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg. updated .

A meteor has only destroyed one satellite, which was the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.

The Koala bear is not really a bear, but is really related to the kangaroo and the wombat.

One gallon of pure maple syrup weighs 11 pounds .

Instead of a Birthday Cake, many Russian children are given a Birthday Pie .

The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people .

The word "comet" comes from the Greek word "kometes" meaning long hair and referring to the tail .

The average price for a major league baseball game in 2004 is $19.82 .

The hydra, which is related to the jellyfish, can grow its body back in a couple of days if it is cut in half .

Trivia Corner

• Venus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise.
• Apples are more efficient than caffeine in waking you up in the morning.
• Mosquito repellents only block the insect's sensors so they don't recognize you. They don't repel.
• The hair of intelligent people have more Zinc and Copper.
• The longest name for a place in the world is a hill in New Zealand called (Taumawhaka) Taumatawhakatangihangakoauotamateatuirpukakapikimaungahoronnukupokaiwhenuakitanataha
• 50,000 words an average wooden pencil can write before running out of lead.
• When a person tells a lie, the tissue in the nose swells, making it itch. So scratching or rubbing the nose is a sign that the person is not telling the truth.
• All months that begin in Sunday has a 13th Friday.
• People who are right hande live an average on nine years longer than the left handed individuals.
• the longest word in the English dictionary without a vowel is the word Rhythm.

The weirdest Little stories

Revenge of the Rats

Norberto Conde of Hagdang Bato, Mandaluyong, Manila came home one evening and found an eight inch rat gorging on their dinner. He beat the rodent with a stick but it managed to escape. Next day, he found his one year old son Karl, dead with several bite marks on his body. The rat had apparently exacted revenge on the young Conde. The night before, Imelda, Karl's mother, heard him crying but she ignored him completely.

They had a Bad day

Two security guards and a supervisor of Merison Enterprises of Malacca, Malaysia, were held up by robbers inside the company warehouse. After tying them up, the thieves took off with a truckload of cigarettes. Managing to escape, the three went to a nearby road for help. Unfortunately, the first car that passed contained four of the robbers, who immediately tied them up again. The unlucky trio were later rescued by co - workers who showed up for work.

Weird suicide

Vergel of Pasay City was found dead by his mother at 10 pm of February 10. Although his penis was found dismembered and his eyes plucked out with a knife, police immediately ruled it as an obvious case of suicide. Lacson's mother did said that prior to the incident, his son was on drugs.

Famous Products created by Infamous Inventors : NOT Big Company

• Adolph's Meat Tenderizer (Adolph Rempp)
• airbag (Allen Breed)
• air brake (George Westinghouse)
• air conditioning (Willis Carrier)
• airplane (Orville & Wilbur Wright)
• air purifier (Frederick Cottrell)
• alternating current (Nicola Tesla)
• Apple computer (Steve Jobs)
• aqualung for divers (Jacques Cousteau)
• atom "smashers" (Ernest Lawrence and Vandergraff)
• ATM (Luther Simijian)
• audio sound generators (William Hewlett)
• Avery labels (Stan Avery)

• baby bottle with hole in the middle (Nickie and William Campbell)
• ball point pen (John Loud)
• Barbie doll (Ruth Handler)
• blender (Stephen Poplawski)
• Blue jeans (Levi Strauss)
• brown 'n serve dinner rolls (Joe Gregor)
• brown paper bag (Margaret Knight)

• calculator (William Seward Burroughs)
• can opener (William W. Lyman)
• car radio (Paul Galvin)
• carpet sweeper (Melville Bissell)
• Castro Convertible sofa beds (Bernard Castro)
• CB Walkie-Talkie (Al Gross)
• Celestial Seasonings herbal tea (Mo Siegel)
• celluloid (John Hyatt)
• cereal (George Kellogg)
• Clue board game (Anthony Pratt)
• Coca-Cola (Dr. John S. Pemberton)
• color film - Kodachrome (Leo Godowsky & Leopold Mannes)
• computer mouse (Douglas C. Engelbart)
• condensed milk (Gail Borden)
• cotton gin (Eli Wbitney)
• Cracker Jack (F.W. Rueckheim)
• Crayola crayons (Edwin Binney & Harold Smith)

• Delta faucet (Alex Manoogian)
• diesel engine (Rudolph Diesel)
• digital fax (Robert Wernikoff)
• dishwasher (Josephine Garis Cochraine)
• disposable diaper (Marion Donovan)
• disposable paper cup (Hugh Moore)
• DoveBar ice cream (Leo Stefanos)
• Dr. Scholl's foot care products (Dr. William Scholl)
• dynamite (Alfred Nobel)

• earmuffs (Chester Greenwood)
• electric blanket (S. I. Russell)
• electronic calculators (An Wang)
• electric shaver (Jacob Schick)
• elevator (Elisha Otis)
• engine-driven generator (Delco) - Charles Kettering

• frozen foods (Clarence Birdseye)
• Fig Newton (James Mitchell)
• FM radio (Edwin Armstrong)
• Frisbee (Fred Morrison)
• frozen pizza (Rose Totino)

• gas mask (Garrett Morgan)
• Gatling gun (Richard Gatling)
• golf tee (Dr. William Lowell)
• Gatorade (Robert Cade, M.D.)
• grocery cart (Sylvan Goldman)
• gyroscope (Charles Stark Draper)

• Hawaiian Tropic suntan oils (Ron Rice)
• helicopter (Igor Sikorsky)
• hot dog roller cooker (Calvin MacCracken)

• implantable cardiac pacemaker (Wilson Greatbatch)
• intermittent windshield wiper (Robert Kearns)

• Jacuzzi whirlpool (Candido and Roy Jacuzzi)
• Jantzen swimwear (John and Roy Zehntbauer)
• Jolt Cola (C.J. Rapp)
• Kitty Litter (Edward Lowe)
• Knox Gelatin (Rose Markward Knox)
• Koosh Ball (Scott Stillinger)

• laser (Gordon Gould)
• La-Z-Boy recliner (Edwin Shoemaker)
• Learjet (Bill Lear)
• Life Savers Candy (Clarence Crane)
• light bulb (Thomas Edison)
• Liquid Paper (Bette Nesmith Graham)
• Louisville Slugger baseball bat (Pete Browning)

• magnetic core memory (Kenneth Olsen, founder, Digital Corp.)
• manufacture of aluminum (Charles Hall)
• Maytag washers (Fred Maytag)
• M- 16 weapon (Eugene Stoner)
• microphone & gramophone (Emile Berliner)
• microwave cookware (Stanley Mason)
• Moen faucets (Al Moen)
• Monopoly board game (Charles Barrow)
• mood rings (Marvin Wernick)
• Morse code (Samuel Morse)
• ME (Raymond Damadian)
• Murphy bed (Willliam Murphy)

• Nerf ball (Reynolds Guyer)
• Nike shoe (Bill Bowerman)
• nuclear reactor (Enrico Fernii and Leo Szilard)

• oasis floral foam (Vemon Smithers)
• Odor-Eaters (Herbert Lapidus)
• outboard motor (Ole Evinrude)

• parking meter (Carlton Magee)
• PC-DOS and MS-DOS computer operating systems (Tim Patterson)
• peach (Luther Burbank)
• Pepperidge Farm bakery (Margaret Rudkin)
• Pepsi-Cola (Caleb Bradham)
• permanent wave machine (Marjorie Joyner)
• phonograph (Thomas Edison)
• plastic (Leo Baekeland)
• pneumatic tire (J.B. Dunlop)
• Polaroid camera (Edwin Land)
• Polarizing sunglasses (Edwin Land)
• Pong - I st video game (Nolan Bushnell)
• Popsicles (Frank Epperson)
• pop top can (Ermal Fraze)
• pop-up tissue box (Andrew Olsen)
• pop-up toaster (Charles Strite)
• potato chips (George Crum)
• PowerBars snack food (Brian Maxwell)
• power hand tools (Black & Decker)
• power steering (Francis Davis)
• punch card tabulating machine (Herman Hollerith)

• quartz timers (George Pierce and Walter Cady)

• radio (Guglielmo Marconi)
• radio tube (Dr. Lee deForest)
• ready mix paint (Henry Sherwin)
• respirator (Dr. Forrest Bird)
• revolver (Samuel Colt)
• rickshaw (Rev. Jonathan Scobie)
• rocketry (Robert Goddard)
• Rollerblades (Scott & Brennan Olsen)
• roll film for cameras (George Eastman)
• Rolodex (Alfred Neustadter)

• safety pin (Walter Hunt)
• safety razor (King Gillette)
• Samsonite luggage (Jesse Shwayder)
• Scrabble board game (Alfred Butts)
• ship propeller (John Ericsson)
• silo (Fred Hatch)
• Slinky toy (Richard James)
• snowboard (Tim Sims)
• Snugli baby carrier (Ann Moore)
• soda straw (Otto Diefenbach)
• sonogram. (Robert H. Rines)
• S.O.S. scouring pads (Edwin W. Cox)
• space guidance systems (Charles Draper)
• standardized cooking recipes (Fannie Farmer)
• strobe lights (Harold Edgerton)
• submarine (Cornelius van Drebbel)
• super computer (Seymour Cray)

• telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)
• television (Philo Farnsworth)
• traffic light (Garrett Morgan)
• Timex watches (Joakim Lehmkuhl)
• Tabasco Sauce (Edmund McIhenny)
• teddy bear (Morris Michtom, founder, Ideal Toy Co.)
• Toll House cookie recipe (Ruth Wakefield)
• Topsy Tail (Tomima Edmark)
• Tupperware (Earl Tupper)
• tuxedo (Pierre Lorillard)
• TV on-screen programming (Michael Levine)
• 2000 Flushes toilet bowl cleaner (Al Eisen)
• typewriter (Christopher Sholes)

• vacuum bottle (James Dewar)
• vacuum cleaner (Ives McGaffhey)
• Velcro (George de Mestral)
• Vicks VapoRub (Lunsford Richardson)
• vulcanized rubber (Charles Goodyear)

• Walkman (Jerome Lemelson)
• waterbed (Charlie Hall)
• water skis (Ralph Samuelson)
• water softener (Emmett Culligan)
• Whitman Sampler (Stephen Whitman)
• Wizzzer toy top (Paul Brown)
• World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee)

• xerography (photocopying - Xerox) (Chester Carlson)

• Zamboni ice resurfacer for ice skating rinks (Frank Zamboni)
• zipper (Whitcomb Judson)

coincidence : facts or fiction II

Fraternal Tragedy

Two brothers in Bermuda were victims of incredibly similar tragedies. Erskine Lawrence Ebbin and his brother Neville were both (accidentally?) killed by the same taxi and driver, carrying the same passengers, while they were riding the same moped on the same street. But the events occurred exactly a year apart. Curiously, however, they were both 17 years old when they died.

Uncanny Parallelism

It is said that the coming of Halley's comet is coincidental with some events in the life of American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli. In 1835, the year Clemens and Schiaparelli were born, the comet appeared, and the comet reappeared in 1910, the year both of them died.

The Titan and The Titanic

The sinking of Titanic was predicted 14 years before it happened. Novelist Morgan Robertson vividly wrote the incident with incredible precision in his book entitled The Wreck of The Titan. He did not know during that time he was making one of the greatest predictions of all time. Comparing Robertson's fictional story of the Titan and the actual tragedy of the Titanic in 1912 reveals startling similarities.

• both the fictional Titan and the real - life Titanic were on their voyage when they encountered the disaster.
• both were British made luxury liners.
• both were regarded as the largest ship ever built.
• both were supposedly unsinkable and the safest ship afloat.
• both ships collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
• both disasters happened in April
• the length of the Titan was 800 ft. while the Titanic was 882.5 ft.
• both ships have some VIPs on board.
• the Titan had 24 lifeboats while the Titanic had 22.
• there were 3000 persons aboard the Titan while the Titanic had 2,224 passengers.
• both disasters resulted to great loss of life and property.
  

coincidence :Fact or Fiction

Some coincidences and incidents in life are just so bizarre it beggars belief!
However such strange coincidences do occur, but still you cannot help but shake your head and wonder. Coincidence is the remarkable occurence of two or more events, having uncanny similarities and apparent circumstantial, numerical or chronographic interrelation, but without logical or reasonable casual connection between them.

One such example is that of the ship The Mermaid.

In 1829, The Mermaid was 4 days out from Sydney Harbour, Australia when an intense storm struck. Between high winds and heavy rains, the ship was finally dumped onto a reef where it began breaking apart. The crew managed to swim towards a rocky outcrop where they were rescued three days later by the crew of another passing vessel. The Swiftsure then encountered an extremely strong current that the crew were unable to counter. The ship was therefore swept on to rocks and also wrecked. The crew of The Mermaid found themselves abandoning ship for a second time.
Eight hours later the schooner Governor Ready already carrying thirty-two people and a full cargo of timber saw their plight and was able to squeeze the survivors from both the Mermaid and Swiftsure on board.
Three hours later, Governor Ready caught fire! The fire spread rapidly thanks to all the added timber on board. The ship was abandoned once more with the aid of longboats.
The Comet, a government ship then appeared unexpectedly, and all were rescued....again!
The crew of the Comet heard the story and considered that the crew of The Mermaid were in fact jinxed, but having passed three shipwrecks without trouble, they decided that good luck was on their side.
But just 5 days later a sudden squall sprang up. With her mast lost, sails in tatters, and rudder gone, the crew of the Comet took to their longboats, abandoning the jinxed crewmen to their own resources.
Clinging to broken up pieces of the ship, the survivors weary and having to fight off sharks were again picked up from their soggy situation by the crew of the Jupiter,
Just 12 hours later, yes, you guessed it, the Jupiter sank!
All were eventually picked up by another ship, The City of Leeds.
Four days later, the City Of Leeds, docked in Sydney Harbour!
But there was one final coincidence to come. On board one of the final vessels, the Jupiter was an elderly lady from Yorkshire, Sarah Richey, who had come to Australia to search for her son Peter who had been missing for over fifteen years. As it turned out, Peter was one of the original crew of the Mermaid.

A case of Retribution?

The case of Henry Ziegland of Honey Grove, Texas is an ultimate puzzler. He jilted his sweetheart who then committed suicide. Her brother triad to avenge her by shooting Ziegland, but the bullet only gazed his face and buried itself in a tree. The brother in believing he had killed Ziegland then took his own life. In 1913(30 years after the incident), Ziegland was cutting down the same tree. It was quite a difficult job, so he used dynamites. The explosion sent the old bullet through Ziegland's head entering the grazed mark on his face, the spot where it failed to kill him before. This time the bullet killed him.

Attraction on falling babies

In the spring of 1975, Joseph Figlock was walking down a street in Detroit when a baby fell on him from a high window. By a stroke of coincidence, it happened again exactly a year after. Mr. Figlock and both babies survived.

(More Story on my next post!)

Products with humble beginning

do you know the origin of some of the important products that we use today?

here are some of them:

Did you know:

• that the Slinky toy was the result of a failed attempt by engineer Richard James to produce an antivibration device for ship instruments? His goal was to develop a spring that would instantaneously counterbalance the wave motion that rocks a ship at sea. Instead, he developed the Slinky.

• that Kleenex tissue was originally designed to be a gas mask filter? It was developed at the beginning of World War I to replace cotton, which was then in short supply as a surgical dressing.

• that in 1800 ether was first used by partyers as a fun diversion? Sniffing the gas led to hilarious and raucous laughter as people watched each other become more and more intoxicated and silly. Several doctors independently realized the value ether would have to anesthetize surgery patients. Of those who claimed rights to the "discovery," none had a happy ending. One had a seizure and died defending his rights. Another spent his life in an asylum because he had been denied acclaim. A third became addicted to chloroform and, in a New York City jail, he soaked a cloth in the drug, severed an artery and bled to death.

• that the x-ray was discovered purely by accident? When German physicist Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays in 1895, he put an activated Crookes tube in a book and went out to lunch. When he returned, he discovered that a key that had also been placed in the book showed up as an image on the developed film!

• that in the early 1940s GE engineer James Wright was charged with a task of utmost importance to the war effort: develop a cheap substitute for rubber that could be used to produce tires, gas masks and a whole host of military gear. Wright tackled the task diligently -- and wound up inventing Silly Putty. (Good thing he didn't work on the artificial heart!)

• that the first match was accidentally discovered in 1826 when chemist John Walker, mixing potash and antimony with a stick, scraped the stick against the stone floor to remove the blob on the end and it burst into flames?

• that while attempting to develop a super strong glue, 3M employee Spencer Silver accidentally developed a glue that was so weak it would barely hold two pieces of paper together? However, his colleague Art Fry needed the glue. Fry sang with his church choir and marked the pages of his hymnal with small scraps of paper that often fell out. He used Silver's glue to hold the papers in place. Today we call this invention Post-it Notes.

• that Coca-Cola's original color was green and Seven-Up was first named "Lithiated Lemon"?

• that when IBM conducted a market study of Chester Carlson's invention in 1959, the company concluded that it would take only 5000 units of his new product to saturate the market? IBM therefore declined to be part of the new product introduction. Too bad for IBM. Carlson's invention was the xerography process, and his new product was the beginning of the Xerox Corporation. It is estimated that every day, worldwide, 3,000,000,000 copies are made!!

• that the Eveready Battery began as an invention called the "electric flowerpot," which was a tube with a battery and light bulb inside? The idea was to fasten this gizmo to the side of a flowerpot so it would illuminate the flowers from the bottom. The idea died on the vine and the businessman who licensed the flower pot, Conrad Huber, was left with a pile of useless tubes -- until he found a way to market them as batteries to light the world!

Everyday FAQs

Why does water not calm the tongue after eating hot spicy food?
The spices in most of the hot foods that we eat are oily, and, like your elementary school science teacher taught you, oil and water don't mix. In this case, the water just rolls over the oily spices.
What can you do to calm your aching tongue? Eat bread. The bread will absorb the oily spices. A second solution is to drink milk. Milk contains a substance called "casein" which will bind to the spices and carry them away. Alcohol also dissolves oily spices.

Why is blue for boys and pink for girls?
In ancient times, it was believed that certain colours could combat the evil spirits that lingered over nurseries. Because blue was associated with the heavenly spirits, boys were clothed in that colour, boys then being considered the most valuable resource to parents. Although baby girls did not have a colour associated with them, they were mostly clothed in black. It was only in the Middle Ages when pink became associated with baby girls.

Why are there bunnies and eggs at Easter?
The ancient Anglo-Saxons celebrated the return of spring with a carnival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eostre. The word carnival possibly originated from the Latin 'carne vale' meaning "flesh, farewell" or "meat, farewell." The offerings were rabbits and coloured eggs, bidding an end to winter.
As it happened, the pagan festival of Eostre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ and it didn't take the Christian missionaries long to convert the Anglo-Saxons when they encountered them in the second century. The offering of rabbits and eggs eventually became the Easter bunny and Easter eggs.

Why is the sky blue?
When sunlight travels through the atmosphere, it collides with gas molecules. These molecules scatter the light. The shorter the wavelength of light, the more it is scattered by the atmosphere. Because it has a shorter wavelength than the other colours, blue light is scattered more, ten times more than red light, for instance. That is why the sky is blue.
Why does the setting sun look reddish orange? When the sun is on the horizon, its light takes a longer path through the atmosphere to reach your eyes than when the sun is directly overhead. By the time the light of the setting sun reaches your eyes, most of the blue light has been scattered out. The light you finally see is reddish orange, the colour of white light minus blue.

Why you shouldn't smoke
If you smoke, you're also inhaling arsenic, benzene, cadmium, hydrogen cyanide, lead, mercury and phonol. In all, 4 000 harmful chemicals, including 44 types of poison, of which 43 are proven cancer-causing substances.

If blood is red, why are veins blue?
Blood is bright red in its oxygenated form and a dark red in deoxygenated form. In simpler terms, it is bright red when it leaves the lungs full of oxygen and dark red when it returns to the lungs for a refill. Veins appear blue because light penetrating the skin is absorbed and reflected in high energy wavelengths back to the eye. Higher energy wavelengths are blue.

Watchama call it?

• One that speaks two languages - is bilingual - can be said to be diglot.

• Ducks are never male. The males of the species are called drakes.

• The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.

• In the early days of film making, people who worked on the sets were called movies. The films were called potion pictures.

• The back of the human hand is the opisthenar.

• Someone who uses as few words as possible when speaking is called pauciloquent.

• The small cup in which an espresso is served is called a demitasse.

• A building in which silence is enforced, like a library or school room, is referred to as a silentium.

• In early France the distance a man could walk while smoking one pipeful of tobacco was called a pipee.

• Compulsive shopping was identified by a German psychiatrist almost a hundred years ago. Clinically it is known as oniomania. Shopaholics are the people who do not suffer from chrematophobia, which is the fear of touching money.

• The device at the intersection of two railroad tracks to permit the wheels and flanges on one track to cross or branch for the other is called a frog.

Fear of...

Fear of... Phobia

fat (becoming)--------------- obesophobia

fatigue----------------------- kopophobia

fear-------------------------- phobophobia

floods------------------------ antlophobia

rape --------------------------virginitiphobia

religious ceremonies---------- teletophobia

responsibility----------------- hypengyophobia

ideas-------------------------- ideophobia

imperfection------------------ atelophobia

injections ---------------------trypanophobia

talking ------------------------laliophobia

telephones --------------------telephonophobia

thinking ----------------------phronemophobia

animal mania

here are some interesting and unusual facts about animals:

• The fur of the binturong, also known as the "Asian Bear Cat," smells like popcorn. The scent is believed to come from a gland located near the tail

• The longest distance a deepwater lobster has been recorded to travel is 225 miles
  

• Orcas (killer whales), when traveling in groups, breathe in unison

• A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana

• A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs

• Not all polar bears hibernate; only pregnant females polar bears do

• The Koala bear is not really a bear, but is really related to the kangaroo and the wombat.

• Irish Wolfhound dogs have a short lifespan and live about 7-8 years

• The fastest moving land snake is the Black Mamba, which can move up to 7 miles per hour

• The Basenji dog is the only dog that is not able to bark

• There is a dog museum in St. Louis, Missouri

• A rabbit is not able to vomit

• Armadillos breed in July, but get pregnant in November after delaying implantation. This allows the young to be born during the spring when there is an abundance of food

• Cattle can produce up to 180 litres of saliva in one day

• Dolphins hear by having sound waves transmit through their skull to their inner ear region

• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about ten

• Lions cannot roar until they reach the age of two.

• The reason why flamingos are pink is because they eat shrimp which have a red pigment

Unusual Death

Some people over the years have had unusual deaths. Here are just of few:

1 SHERWOOD ANDERSON (writer)1941 He died after swallowing a toothpick on an ocean liner that was bound for Brazil.

2 ATTILA THE HUN.453 AD Poor Atilla died from a nosebleed on his wedding night.

3 THOMAS A. BECKET Murdered at Canterbury cathedral in England by four knights

4 AMANDA BLAKE (actress) (Miss Kitty in the cowboy series "Gunsmoke" )She died from AIDS contracted from her bisexual husband.

5 BONO (Husband of singer Cher) He died after crashing into a tree while skiing.

6 DAVY CROCKETT (1836) He died defending the Alamo.

7 ELVIS PRESLEY (1977) The King died sitting on a tiolet seat.

8 MARVIN GAYE (singer) Murdered by his father on his birthday.

9 FRANK HAYES (Jockey) 1923 He had a heart attack during a race. His horse Sweet Kiss won the race.Hayes is the only deceased jockey to WIN a race.

The softer side of a Diamond

A diamond is the hardest natural substance on earth, but if it is placed in an oven and the temperature is raised to about 763 degrees Celsius (1405 degrees Fahrenheit), it will simply vanish, without even ash remaining. Only a little carbon dioxide will have been released.

Diamonds are formed over a period of a billion or more years deep within earth's crust - about 150km (90 miles) deep - and is pushed to the surface by volcanoes. Most diamonds are found in volcanic rock, called Kimberlite, or in the sea after having been carried away by rivers when they were pushed to the surface.

A diamond is 58 times harder than the next hardest mineral on earth, corundum, from which rubies and sapphires are formed. It was only during the 15th century that it was discovered that the only way to cut diamonds was with other diamonds. Yet, diamonds are brittle. If you hit one hard with a hammer, it will shatter.

The largest diamond
The world's largest diamond was the Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut. It was cut into the Great Star of Africa, weighing 530.2 carats, the Lesser Star of Africa, which weighs 317.40 carats, and 104 other diamonds of nearly flawless colour and clarity. They now form part of the British crown jewels.

The Cullinan was three times the size of the next largest diamond, the Excelsior, which was also found in South Africa. The world's largest documented polished diamond - unearthed in 1986, also in South Africa - is called Unnamed Brown. It weighs 545 carats and was cut down from a 700 carat rough diamond. It took an international team of expert cutters 3 years to complete the masterpiece. Another impressive diamond that also took 3 years to cut, and also is part of the British crown jewels, is the Centenary Diamond. It weighs 273.85 carats and is the world's largest flawless diamond.

Not all diamonds are white. Impurities lend diamonds a shade of blue, red, orange, yellow, green and even black. A green diamond is the rarest. It is not the rarest gemstone, however. That title goes to a pure red ruby. Diamonds actually are found in fair abundance; thousands are mined every year. 80% of them are not suitable for jewellery - they are used in industry. Only diamonds of higher clarity are sourced to the jewellery stores.

Synthetic diamonds
Late in the 19th century, Scottish scientist James Ballantyne mixed lithium with bone oil and paraffin, sealed it in iron tubes and heated it to red hot. He claimed the resultant stones were diamonds. They were stored away and only many years later they were found to be diamonds, although synthetic.

on the 13th

It is believed that the fear for the number 13 stems from primitive man being unable to count past 12. Numbers beyond 12 do now have an individual and independent name but are a combination of the first 12 numbers. With 12 being the end of the line, 13 was moving into unknown territory.

In Norse mythology the 13th number led to the death of Baldur, the beloved of the gods. When the 12 gods gathered for a banquet in Valhalla, Loki gatecrashed the party, increasing the number to 13, which led to the death of Baldur. It also happens that in Tarot cards, 13 is called "Death."

THE GOOD LUCK IS!

But 13 is not unlucky for all. The Mayas worshipped the 13 gods of the upper world. The Aztecs climbed 13 steps to their sacred places. Buddhists paid homage to 13 Buddhas. In Jewish faith, God revealed Himself by 13 attributes of bountiful mercy (Exodus 34: 6-7). The orthodox Jewish prayer book hold the Thirteen Principles of Faith. Jewish boys celebrate their Bar Mitzvah at age 13.

The number 13 in Greek is triskaideka and the fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia.

The original Father's Day

Father's Day exists almost all over the world to honor and commemorate fathers or forefathers. In the Roman Catholic tradition, Father's Day is celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, though in most countries Father's Day is a secular celebration.

In the United States, the driving force behind the establishment of the celebration of Father's Day was Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, as a single parent raised his six children in Spokane, Washington. She was inspired by Anna Jarvis's efforts to establish Mother's Day. Although she initially suggested June 5, the anniversary of her father's death, she did not provide the organizers with enough time to make arrangements, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday in June. The first Father's Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.

On place a flag is not saluted..

Philippines' Independence Day is approaching and everyone should salute the flag as a symbol of respect and honor, however do you know a place where flag is not saluted?

The only place in the universe where a flag flies all day, never goes up or comes down, never flies half-mast and does not get saluted, is the moon.

It is, of course, the American flag, the only country to have landed people on the moon even though British Interplanetary Society engineers had in 1939 designed a ship to carry people to the moon. Since Apollo 11 landed on moon on 20th July 1969 untill 1972, 12 American astronauts walked on the moon, spending 170 hours roaming over 100 km (over 60 miles). They brought home 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of soil and rock, and 30,000 photographs.

The first landing of the moon is celebrated in the festival of Evoloterra on 20th July.

The Apollo 17 crew were the last men on the moon.With Ronald Evans in the command module, Commander Eugene Cernan and scientist Harrison H. Schmitt drove 34 km (21 miles) in the lunar buggy. On December 11, 1972 they left behind a plaque that reads: "Here Man completed his first exploration of the Moon, December 1972 A.D. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind." Cernan was the last man to have set foot on another celestial body.

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