Crazy from the Past

I love reading about the science and Natural discoveries of the past. We believed a lot of crazy things. This week I want to delve into 3 areas of craziness form the past: food, fashion and foolishness. We look back at it now and say, “What were they thinking?” Yet who’s to say we don’t have ideas that someday people will cringe at.

First is food. Did you know that originally, tomatoes were thought to be poisonous? They are part of the nightshade family of plants, many of which are deadly. Tomatoes originated from South America. They we first brought to Italy in the 1500s and then spread to the American colonies in the 1700s. The French
nicknamed them pomme d’amour or “love apple” because they thought it was an aphrodisiac. Others called it the “poison apple”. This was probably because it was sometimes served on pewter plates and the acid in the tomatoes leached out the lead in the pewter. Thomas Jefferson grew and ate tomatoes. It is said that in 1820 Col. Robert Gibbon Johnson, a horticulturalist, ate a basket of tomatoes on the courthouse steps of Salem New Jersey to show everyone they were safe. Soon they spread across the country. The once “poisonous” tomato was now a household staple. (https://www.uvm.edu/extension/news/history-tomatoes)

Second is fashion.  Radium was discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. It is a highly radioactive element. In the 1920s there was a craze where radium was put in all sorts of products. It was used in watch dials

to cause the numbers to glow in the dark. They made a movie about it called “The Radium Girls”. There was radium in hair tonic, cosmetics, toothpaste, and even false teeth. You could find radium glass and water crocks. There was even radium infused mineral water. Sometimes just the name was used as an advertising agent. After many deaths because of radium it was regulated by the FDA in 1938. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_fad)

The third is about a good idea that wasn’t really tested and thought through. From the 1920s to the 1950s a machine was designed that used x-rays to help sales people fit the shoe to the person. Seeing the bone structure of the client was a real help, but people, including the sales person received huge doses of x-rays that caused all sorts of problems including cancer and other tumors. We still use x-rays in medicine today, but we know a lot more about it.

So the lesson from history? Jumping into technology without really knowing it can be very foolish! I wonder what they will say about us in 50 years?

Fireworks!

(This week both the Musings page and Notes from Papaw have the same post. I’m either lazy or on vacation. Honestly, I’m not sure which.)

This Saturday is the Fourth of July. People around the nation will attend parades, have picnics, light of fireworks at their home, and if your city is having one, attend a professional fireworks display. There you can see bursts of wonderful colors and different shapes, golden showers of sparkles, and eye-widening kabooms!

Have you ever wondered how professional fireworks are made? Ya, so did I. So let’s take a look at the anatomy of a typical firework. When you see a firework display from the launching end, It looks like a bunch of tubes all lined up together. These tubes are called mortars. Inside the tube is the shell. The shell is made of two parts, The lifting charge and the color pellets. The lifting charge is located on the bottom of the shell that is usually made of black powder. It is there to lift the top section high into the air. This makes it easier to see. It also keeps the explosions, sparks, and any hot embers away from people and high enough to burn out before they hit the ground. The top section of the shell has the colorful part. It contains small pellets called stars. These can be made to produce different colors, shapes, and noises. Some of the designs are proprietary, which means they were invented by the firework makers, and the formulas are closely guarded secrets. There are usually at least two fuses. The first fuse lights the lift charge. Once the firework is safely in the air, a second fuse, sometimes called the timer fuse, causes the section with the stars to explode (the burst charge) and starts the stars burning also. They now can even create designs with the fireworks. One special firework that I have seen ends up making a smiley face!

The colors usually come from various metal salts. A salt is a combination of a metal and one or more nonmetals. Table salt is sodium chloride, made of the metal sodium and a gas called chlorine. Here is a list of the most commonly used salts.

Strontium: Red

Calcium: Orange

Sodium: Yellow

Barium: Green

Copper: Blue

Strontium + Copper: Purple

Magnesium, Aluminum + Titanium: White

(Source: https://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/science-at-home/diy-science-fun/the-science-of-fireworks)

And to think these all started with the Chinese putting gun powder into long bamboo tubes. This is thought to have happened somewhere between 600-800 AD, during the Tang Dynasty.

For those of you who don’t have a fireworks display in their home town, here is a display from 2025, courtesy of the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland. Enjoy!

Ice Cream!

Saturday, June 27^th is National Ice Cream Cake Day. I have no idea why, but just the same, let’s roll with it. Except the cake can wait for another installment.  I have met very few people who don’t like ice cream. I even know people that are lactose intolerant who like ice cream. Now I realize it says Ice Cream Cake Day, but I’m only really hearing ice cream at the moment. My favorite flavor? Ya, whatever is available in the freezer at the time. I have serious issues at Baskin Robins or Cold Stone. I end up doing the “Eeny meeny miny mo” thing. Moose tracks is the current option. So me being me, I had to look up where it came from.

According to the Museum of Ice Cream (https://www.museumoficecream.com/blog/history-of-ice-cream/) ice cream has been invented several times. In 400 BC the Persians were eating something called faloodeh, a kind of an ice dessert. In 200 BC the Chinese mixed frozen milk and rice. In India they made kulfi, a slow-frozen milk dessert containing pistachio, saffron, and cardamom. In the Middle East people made sharbat, which is fruit syrups chilled with ice. It’s where we get our words sherbet and sorbet. These all happened independently of each other. Hey, people like their frozen dessert!

Up until the mid-1800’s ice cream as we know it was a luxury, reserved for only the well-to-do crowd. It was popularized in America by Thomas Jefferson who fell in love with it while visiting Europe. It is said that Washington spent a large amount of money just on ice cream.

It all changed when a lady named Nancy M. Johnson invented the hand-cranked ice cream machine in  1843. It swiftly moved ice cream into everyday homes. Add to that refrigeration, and ice cream parlors began springing up in neighborhoods across the nation.

Some of my favorite childhood memories are tied to warm summer evenings when my cousins would come from Missouri and we would have dinner in my grandparent’s yard. The adults would con the children into turning the crank on grandma’s old ice cream mixer for a small share in the product. It was soft serve at its best. I volunteered any time I could. Now they make ones with motors that do the mixing. Still nothing tastes quite like ice cream made with your own two hands. We can’t seem to get enough of it. Hand mixed, Soft serve, frozen yogurt, gelato, there seems to be a store on every corner.

Hmm, I think I’ll have a double scoop with rocky road and chocolate fudge – in a waffle cone please. Nuts on top? Oh, now that does sound lovely…

 

The Summer Solstice

This Sunday is kind of a double-decker. It is Father’s Day witch is always the 3^rd Sunday in June. But this year, it is also the summer solstice. You might also know it as the beginning of summer. Each of the seasons starts with a special day – either a solstice or an equinox. Equinox means equal. It is the point where the length of daylight and night are equal. The vernal equinox is the start of spring. The autumnal equinox signals the start of fall or autumn. Solstices are the extremes. The winter solstice is the longest night of the year. The summer solstice, June 21st this year is the longest day. This is how the seasons go in the Northern Hemisphere, or north of the equator. If you go south of the equator, say to South America or Australia, then things would be reversed. Our summer is their winter and so on. In places close to the Arctic Circle the sun may never go down during summer. They say you can read a newspaper on a park bench at midnight without needing any light.

Many civilizations celebrated the summer solstice. It is believed that Stonehenge in England  was built to mark this event. On the summer solstice the Sun rises directly in the center of the stone circle.

Even though it is the longest day of the summer, it is not usually the hottest. It actually takes some time for the Northern Hemisphere to heat up. That’s why our hottest months are usually August and September. Actually here in California it has felt like summer for 3 or 4 weeks.

The summer solstice is caused by the tilt of the Earth. In the summer, the Earth tilts toward the Sun. This causes more direct sunlight to strike the Earth at a more direct angle. The Southern Hemisphere receive sunlight at a indirect angle, thus causing winter conditions. After the summer solstice, the day length gets slightly shorter every day until they become equal again at the autumnal equinox. 

Sunday, the Sun will rise early and set late. It will be the perfect time for a Father’s Day picnic in the park or a summer barbeque in the back yard. Either way, I hope you enjoy the first day of summer!

Some Things really Bug Me...

Social Media is all awash with people freaking out about drops or proposed drops of insects from planes or helicopters. Some have claimed it’s a conspiracy to infect millions of people with the next “new disease”. The three basic creatures (ticks are not insects) that people have been worrying about are: mosquitoes, ticks, and now screw flies.

There are two things to remember when reading about insect drops.

#1 many of these sites are just trying to get people to read their content because the more visitors they get, the more they get paid. So of course controversial is the go-to content. Because it’s technically their opinion, they do not have to substantiate what they say.

#2 Dropping serialized male insects to reduce populations is not new. It has been used since the 1950s. The screw worm was eradicated from the US using the technique. The recent new occurrences are basically because they haven’t kept up with it.

The basic idea for sterilized insect releases to control pests or diseases was conceived by E. F. Knipling (https://ipmworld.umn.edu/bartlett) in 1937. He used x-rays (later gamma rays) to cause sterility in male insects. It has been used around the world on a variety of beetles, flies, and mosquitoes to eradicate diseases and pests on fruits and vegetables. It is a tried and true method of control. In most species, especially mosquitoes and ticks, it is the female vector that carries the disease. The males do not feed on blood, They drink plant juices. Virtually all the released insects or other vectors are all male. So bokes of ticks dropped from planes (again not a new thing) are not feeding on other animals, they are just not reproducing. Many insects and other creatures mate only once so if it mates with a sterile male – no offspring.

Like anything, it can have issues. It is important to make sure that the insects released are truly sterilized.  One benefit is that it needs no insecticide so no resistance and no poisoning the environment with toxic chemicals. All in all, one of the better successes of applied science.

I hope this helps calms some fears for those that can’t resist scrolling. For more in depth information try this site. https://www.iaea.org/topics/sterile-insect-technique

Invisible.

Have you ever had a moment where you felt invisible? Where you wanted to find a mirror and see if you were really there? I rarely feel that way. As a teacher I’m kind of always in the limelight. Oh, I may feel like they are ignoring me, but never invisible. 

This week I found myself in one of those moments. I was on my way to the state park for a one man show day. (Meaning I was the only person on the schedule.) I decided to treat myself to a nice morning coffee. Black coffee with hazelnut and cream is my go to drink. I walked in and stood by the cash register. I was greeted with - silence. For 5 minutes I stood there. One employee walked past me 3 times without even looking at me.  I was screaming inside, “hello?!” I understand busy. I was expecting a short wait. But there was only silence. I turned around without saying a word, without being noticed, and without coffee. 

Now the day did not end up bad. After a call to customer service, I actually received $5 credit on my next visit. Still it left a lasting impression. I did not like it at all. 

I see it with the poor and homeless. That afternoon on the way home there was a man standing with a sign. He didn’t even look at the cars. Most never acknowledged him either. I usually carry some spare change just for this occasion but I realized I had left it on the dresser. All I could do is smile. The next day he was there again. My change was also still on my dresser. This time I apologized for not having anything. He just smiled and said, “It’s all good.” I hope he’s there again. I want to help people know they are seen. I may not have anything with me to meet their needs but I can at least acknowledge that they exist. We can do better. Wherever we go, let’s make the invisible seen again. 

Be Smarter Than What You’re Working With!

I have often watched short video clips of people trying to do simple things and thought, “Can people really be that clueless?” Now that I have a few years under my belt, I understand what my dad meant when he would say, “Be smarter than what you’re working with”. Now, my wife would correct me and tell me that my sentence form is incorrect. It should be, “Be smarter that that with which you are working”. Nope. It just doesn’t sound the same. Sometimes it’s worth ending with a preposition. So in honor of our untrained Gen Zers (or whatever generation we are in) this week I thought I would give some pointers about commonly used tools.

I need to clear up one issue though. Being the “MacGyver” type guy that I am, you may see me using tools in unconventional ways. Why just today, I used a screwdriver as a lever.  Mostly because I was already on the floor under a desk and didn’t want to get up, but also because I knew it would work. The main thing it to know the limits of your tools. I’m not above buying tools at the discount places, but I also realize they may not be top quality and need to be treated that way. So let’s get too it. Here are basic hints for some commonly used tools.

The Adjustable Spanner – It is also called an adjustable wrench or a “crescent wrench”. Crescent made the wrench popular and now has its name associated with the product, much like how tissues are also called Kleenexes.  Tip: Once you have adjusted it to size always face the smaller jaw (the adjustable one) facing the direction of the turn. If the bolt or nut is very tight, use a box end wrench.

Box End/Open End Combination – These wrenches usually come in basic sets like US standard or metric. One end is closed in, the other has an open slot. Tip: Use the box end to break it loose or finish tighten and the slot to turn it when it is freely moving.

Claw Hammer – The claw hammer is a tool used to hammer nails on the blunt side and remove them using lever action on the claw side. They can have wood. Metal or fiberglass handles. Tip: When hammering, hold the hammer as far back on the handle as possible. You get more swing that way. It wouldn’t hurt to practice your aim either. Get and old piece of wood and a handful of nails. Practice until you can hit the nail square on the head with the hammer most of the time. You can even practice removing them. If a nail is sticking out to far for the claw to remove it, place a piece of wood in between the board and the hammer to increase you leverage. 

Ratchet & Sockets – If you do any shade tree car mechanic work, you had better make friends with your socket set. Now this one can be a rabbit hole. You see, one can never have enough sockets. Again, they come in metric and standard. Biggest Tip: Your ratchet is not a hammer. Don’t do it. You’ll thank me later. Keep in mind, “Righty tighty; Lefty loosey”. I guess I shouldn’t leave that without an explanation. Turning to the right normally tightens; turning to the left normally loosens. Oh, and wear a set of mechanic gloves. Your knuckles will be thanking you.

Measuring Tape – The retractable measuring tape is a life saver. Buy a quality one so that you know the markings are correct. Tip: The wider the tape the farther it and reach without falling over. I recommend a 20 feet/ ¾ inch tape for most projects. Always recheck your measurements in several places to be accurate. Remember, measure 3 times, cut once.

Screw Divers – Screw drivers come in many different kinds and sizes. The most common are Philips (+ head) Flat-blade, torx (looks like a star) and one that is gaining in popularity, the square drive. Tips: Find the right kind and the right size. Push down and turn. Remember: “Righty tighty; Lefty loosey”.  In a pinch Flat-blade screwdrivers can be used to pry things open, and even as a chisel. Again, if you are not sure, proceed cautiously.

One last very important tip. Always use proper PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) what working with tools. These include: Safety glasses or goggles, gloves, hearing protection, proper shoes and a hard hat if required. You can always replace a tool, but spare eyes, ears or fingers aren’t readily available. I hope this helps!