The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally

It's Vaffeldagn (Waffle Day) ...!
 

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Today is - National Pecan Day 

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Today in History

708		Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
1634		Lord Baltimore founds the catholic colony of Maryland.
1655		Puritans jail Governor Stone after a military victory over catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.
1668		The first horse race in America takes place.
1776		The Continental Congress authorizes a medal for General George Washington.
1807		British Parliament abolishes the slave trade.
1813		The frigate USS Essex flies the first U.S. flag in battle in the Pacific.
1865		Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman, during the siege of Petersburg, Va.
1879		Japan invades the kingdom of Liuqiu (Ryukyu) Islands, formerly a vassal of China.
1905		Rebel battle flags that were captured during the American Civil War are returned to the South.
1911		A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a sweatshop in New York City, claims the lives of 146 workers.
1915		The first submarine disaster occurs when a U.S. F-4 sinks off the Hawaiian coast.
1919		The Paris Peace Commission adopts a plan to protect nations from the influx of foreign labor.
1931		Fifty people are killed in riots that break out in India. Mahatma Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.
1940		The United States agrees to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.
1941		Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers.
1953		The USS Missouri fires on targets at Kojo, North Korea, the last time her guns fire until the Persian Gulf War of 1992.
1954		RCA manufactures its first color TV set and begins mass production.
1957		The European Common Market Treaty is signed in Rome. The goal is to create a common market for all products–especially coal and steel.
1965		Martin Luther King Jr. leads a group of 25,000 to the state capital in Montgomery, Ala.
1969		John Lennon and Yoko Ono stage a bed-in for peace in Amsterdam.
1970		The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight.
1975		Hue is lost and Da Nang is endangered by North Vietnamese forces. The United States orders a refugee airlift to remove those in danger.
1981		The U.S. Embassy in San Salvador is damaged when gunmen attack, firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.
1986		Reagan orders emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters take Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.

The Peak Age for Everything

There's something great to be said for every age. According to research, people are most satisfied with their lives at age 23, but after a lot more experience, they are  very satisfied again at age 69. The best age for learning a new language is seven, but that doesn't mean your chance is gone if you don't. You reach peak muscle strength at age 25, but your math skills will peak at 50, and 51-year-olds are better at understanding emotions. Of course, these are averages, so your mileage may vary. The section on marriage is understandable, but not definitive.

The peak age to settle down is 26.
The 37% Rule of statistics says that at age 26 you'll have met enough people to have some solid options without waiting so long that they start pairing off without you.
And according to one recent study, divorce rates are lowest for couples who married between the ages of 28 and 32.

Check out the peak age for all kinds of things at Business Insider. Each conclusion has links to the research that produced it.

Health Benefits of Brown Rice

9 Health Benefits of Brown Rice According to Science

The Best Recipe for Ethical Chocolate

Synlight

The World's Largest Artificial Sun

Photoengineer Volkman Dohmen stands in front of Synlight 

Let there be light! Scientists at the German Aerospace Center or DLR's Institute of Solar Research flipped the switch to turn on the world's largest artificial sun called "Synlight."

Located in Juelich, Cologne, Germany, the Synlight array is a giant honeycomb-like structure of 140 xenon short-arc lamps. When focused on a single spot, the 350-kilowatt array produces the equivalent of 10,000 times the intensity of solar radiation on the Earth's surface. That's enough to heat the target area up to 3,000 degrees Celsius (5,400 degrees Fahrenheit).

Read all about Synlight in this article by Frank Jordans over at Phys.org

Fascinating Facts About the Pharaohs of Egypt

You probably know that the pharaohs were powerful rulers of Egypt, but you may be surprised by what you don't know about them. For example, did you know there was a pharaoh who let his army lose in battle only so he could protect the lives of cats, that were considered sacred? Or that the female pharaoh Hapshetsut asked to be depicted as a man by all artists in order that naysayers wouldn't criticize her ability to rule based on her gender?

Learn more about these fascinating historical rulers on TopTenz

Tokyo's Newest Style of Cafe Offers a Nice Place to Nap

We all feel run down during our work day sometimes, but while most people lean towards a caffeinated beverage, sometimes the best way to refresh yourself is with a nap. Now a new Tokyo cafe concept is offering guests a chance to do just that with dim lighting and fancy reclining beds.Visitors must order a food item to ensure a two-hour slot in the bed, which also includes a cup of decaf coffee for before bed and a caffeinated cup of Joe afterward.
You can read more about the cafe concept at RocketNews24

The Cheapest House For Sale in San Francisco is a Fire-Gutted Wreck for $499,000

If you want to buy a house in San Francisco, you better have deep pockets. The median listing price of a detached home in the city is currently $1.15 million dollar according to Zillow (renting isn't much cheaper either, with median rent list price of over $4,000).

But deals can be found, like this house in the Excelsior District, which is currently listed for sale at a mere $499,000. It's a steal, if you're willing to overlook some negatives ... like being completely gutted by a fire, for example.
Take a look at what half-a-million bucks would get you in San Francisco, which Curbed SF identified as the cheapest house for sale in the city right now.

Why Women Couldn’t Wear Pants on the Senate Floor Until 1993

So many of the conventions that ruled how men and women interacted were "unwritten rules" that everyone understood, but were not legally codified. Conformity came from social pressure from the majority of people who just knew that "that's the way it is." Such was the dress code for the U.S. Senate that expected women to wear dresses long after those in other professions were wearing pantsuits, uniform pants, or jeans to work.

As the upper house in the U.S. legislature, the Senate has always been more formal and reserved than the House. Even during the 1980s, pants on women were apparently too much for that august chamber to handle. Individual Senate offices had their own rules, but on the floor, women wearing pants were verboten, which could necessitate quick changes. "We've heard from women staff that in the 1980s, if they came in to work—if they were called in on an emergency basis—they needed to keep a dress to put on quickly or they had to borrow one if they had to appear on the Senate floor," Richard A. Baker, Senate historian from 1975 to 2009, told The Washington Post in 2002.
While the dress code for the Senate was never officially codified, the norms were enforced by Senate doorkeepers, who controlled access to the chamber and served partly as security guards, partly as protocol monitors. Even today, they assess each person seeking entry, making sure they are supposed to be there and are dressed appropriately. The problem is that "dressed appropriately" has historically been up to the discretion of the doorkeeper on duty: Doorkeepers made determinations based on personal opinion or instructions from their boss, the sergeant at arms.

What did it take for the doorkeepers to back down over enforcing that dresses be worn by women senators? It took a critical number of concurrent women senators (six), and one breaking the unwritten rule in order to bring the entire subject up for discussion. Read how that finally happened in 1993 at mental_floss.

Heaven's Gate Suicides

What the Heaven’s Gate suicides say about American culture

Taliban Supplier

Putin may be supplying Taliban, general says

Nazi Who Traveled to New York to Murder Black Men Likes Dumbass Trump

White Supremacist Who Traveled to New York to Murder Black Men Followed Extremist Racist On-Line Groups Who Support Dumbass Trump

New Clouds

New species of cloud identified in 21st century Cloud Atlas

Earth: 'uncharted territory'

Climate change puts earth into 'uncharted territory'

A Galaxy Far, Far Away ...

New powerful telescopes allow direct imaging of nascent galaxies 12 billion light years away

Selling Dog and Cat Meat Is Still Legal in Most of U.S.

Selling Dog and Cat Meat Is Still Legal in Most of U.S.—but a Federal Ban Could Soon Be in Place

Romantic Spiders

Do spiders have a romantic personality?

Rare Black Serval Spotted in Africa

While leading a wild life photography tour in Kenya, Sergio Pitamitz spotted something rare: a jet-black serval - an African wild cat that normally has cheetah-like spots. The black serval ambled into view of the group, then disappeared back into the bush."When you do wildlife photography, you're always searching for something rare and strange," Pitamitz said to National Geographic, "It was absolutely incredible."
Black servals have been spotted before - but it's quite rare. There are just six records of black servals in scientific literature, according to biologist Eduardo Eizirik of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil:
The animal is melanistic—its genes carry a mutation that creates more dark pigment than light pigment ... Though melanism is common enough among wildcats—it's reported in 13 of the 38 known species—the trait seems to be relatively rare in servals
Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic has the full story (check out the large image of the black serval there. What a lovely creature!)

Animal Pictures