CAROLINA NATURALLY: May 4, 2017

Thursday, May 4, 2017

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally

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Today in History

1471		In England, the Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury.
1626		American Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.
1715		A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.
1776		Rhode Island declares independence from England.
1795		Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.
1814		Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
1863		The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
1864		Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate army.
1927		A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
1930		Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
1942		The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
1942		The United States begins food rationing.
1961		13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
1970		Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.

Your perception of time may depend on the language you speak

In Ted Chiang’s science-fiction masterpiece “Story of Your life” — adapted into the Hollywood blockbuster “Arrival” — the protagonist, a linguist named Louise Banks, learns the language of an alien race — one that completely alters her perception of time.
As she becomes increasingly proficient in this alien language, she begins to perceive time not as a linear sequence of events (wherein cause precedes effect), but as a chunk in which all events occur simultaneously.
The story is, of course, science-fiction, and thus takes certain creative liberties with real ideas and concepts (especially with what’s called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). But the central tenet of the story — that language alters how the brain perceives time — may not be far off the mark.

Your perception of time may depend on the language you speak

Life Saver Lightning

You've probably heard at one time or another that Wint-o-Green mint Life Savers sometimes flash when you bit down on them. Since this would require chewing with your mouth open, I have never seen it. But it happens. Smarter Every Day shows us what it looks like in slow motion.

(YouTube link)

The phenomenon is called triboluminescence, which is light generated by the energy of breaking chemical bonds. Cool Science explains it more thoroughly, and how you can try it at home.

Debunking the Myth of 19th-Century ‘Tear Catchers’

Victorians were known for leaving behind some weird accessories, like mustache guards, lobster bustles, and tussie-mussies. And they were big on ritualized mourning. So when you see a bottle that purports to be a Victorian tear catcher, it just seems to fit right in with what you know. Victorians in mourning, it was said, stored their tears in a small bottle. When the tears started evaporating faster then they were collected, that meant that period of mourning was over. But in reality, there is no such thing as a Victorian tear catcher.

“People ask to buy them all of the time. At least a few people a week,” says Christian Harding, owner of The Belfry, an oddities and collectibles store in Seattle. Harding then must explain that the bottles most are looking for—blown, usually clear, glass decorated with patterns, gilding, and colorful enamel—are throwaway perfume bottles. But the “tear catcher” term has stuck, through a combination of historical accident and deceptive, yet effective, marketing.
The myth likely began with archaeologists and an oddly chosen term. Small glass bottles were often found in Greek and Roman tombs, and “early scholars romantically dubbed [them] lachrymatories or tear bottles,” writes Grace Elizabeth Arnone Hummel, who runs the perfume website Cleopatra’s Boudoir. Those glass bottles held perfume and unguents, not tears, Hummel explains. “Scientists have performed chemical tests on these flasks and they disproved the romantic theory.” But stories sometimes acquire their own momentum.

The idea of bottling up one's tears is just too good of a story to NOT use in marketing. Read about how tear catchers came about at Atlas Obscura.

These 10 Egg Tricks Bring Sexy Back To Breakfast

Eggs have been a culinary staple throughout human history and they'll most likely stay that way until there are no more eggs being laid nor humans to eat them.

But it's virtually impossible to have such a long-standing relationship with a food without boredom creeping in, so how can we make the humble egg sexy again?
Check out this video by How To Make Sushi and you'll see- making sexy eggs is simply a matter of adding herbs and cheese to egg whites before making a sunny side up fried egg, or whip them up and make light and airy Eggs Devaux.

(YouTube Link)

‘Exercise-in-a-pill’

GW1516 boosts athletic endurance by 70 percent

Every week, there seems to be another story about the health benefits of running. That’s great—but what if you can’t run? For the elderly, obese or otherwise mobility-limited, the rewards of aerobic exercise have long … Read more

1 In 3 Americans May Have Had a Mini Stroke

1 In 3 Americans May Have Had a Mini Stroke—and 97% Did Nothing About It

Learn the symptoms so you won’t be one of them

With drug reps kept at bay, doctors prescribe more judiciously

With drug reps kept at bay, doctors prescribe more judiciously

Why those Facebook 'likes' don't make you happy

Why those Facebook 'likes' don't make you happy

Same-sex couple can seek damages from Kentucky clerk

A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a damages lawsuit against Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples because it conflicted with her 'christian' delusions.

Same-sex couple can seek damages from Kentucky clerk: US appeals court

Why Police Started Wearing Gloves at Crime Scenes

Wearing gloves while examining a crime scene seems like a no-brainer to us, because we watch CSI and other acronym shows that follow modern police procedures. Anything you carry on your hands might contaminate evidence. But think about it: DNA wasn't used as evidence until just the last couple of decades. Gloves were used long before that. In fact, the turning point was a 1924 case in which Patrick Mahon stabbed and dismembered his lover, Emily Kaye.

Sir Bernard Spilsbury, a famous British pathologist, was called in as the chief medical examiner on the case. Spilsbury asked officers to collect the remains for further examination. Officers rolled up their sleeves and started tossing body parts into buckets, “as if they were sorting fish on a quayside.” Shocked, Spilsbury asked them if no rubber gloves were available, and they responded that they never wore protective gear of any kind.
By the next big murder case, Spilsbury had created the “Murder Bag,” a kit for police officers to carry that included rubber gloves, a magnifying glass, a tape measure, a ruler, swabs, sample bags, forceps, scissors, a scalpel, and other instruments. Suiting up with gloves before entering an active crime scene has been standard procedure ever since. The glove method isn’t the only thing the Mahon/Kaye case inspired, by the way—Alfred Hitchcock used details from the sensational story when he was making Rear Window.

From the narrative, one gets the idea that the gloves were more to protect the investigators than to protect the evidence at that point. You can read the gruesome story of that murder case at Mental Floss.