30/ix mmxvi

Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, was the great-grandson of the inventor of Jameson’s Irish whiskey.

The German Staubsauger and Dutch Stofzuiger, both literally translate as ‘dust-sucker’ to mean vacuum cleaner.

Victorian pantomimes starting at 7pm often did not finish until midnight.

In 2014, a pair of underpants donated by the mayor of Brussels was stolen from the Brussels Underpants Museum.

Between 1939 and 1945, World War II claimed an average of 1256 lives per hour; between 1934 and 1945, Holocaust claimed an average of 169 lives per hour.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Warts Myth?

“People can catch warts from toads.”

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Ruling:
False. Warts are unique to humans. Toads do not have them.

Analysis:
There are no amphibians that give you warts. This myth has been around for a long time and is probably related to the fact that many frogs and toads have warty looking bumps on their skin. These are glands and do not secrete anything that can cause people to have warts. Although some skin secretions of some amphibians may irritate your skin and cause a rash. Warts are actually caused by viruses.

See other: Mythconceptions?

Failed Creation

(Chapter XV)

‘I sickened as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? […] my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance.’

– Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Forced to Love

Nelson: ‘I fear you’? This is what Valentine’s Day means to you?

Bart: This is what it means to everyone. How can you be forced to say ‘I love you’? People only give Valentines because they’re scared of what would happen if they didn’t.

– The Simpsons (2013) Season 25, Episode 11; “Specs and the City” [No. 541]

Plover [Noun.]

Any of various wading birds of the family Charadriidae, small to medium-sized birds with compact bodies, short, thick necks and long, usually pointed, wings, Their bill is usually straight and short, their toes are short, hind toe could be reduced or absent, depending on species.

‘Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.’
– Gerard Nolst Trenité, The Chaos

Conversations: Religions and War

Galene
Billions of people share the belief that the creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of our books. There are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and they make incompatible claims about how we all must live. Why should this pose a problem?

Sappho
Competing religious doctrines have shattered our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continual source of human conflict.

Helena
And in response to this situation, many sensible people advocate something called religious tolerance. While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its problems. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us unwilling to criticize ideas that are increasingly maladaptive and patently ridiculous.

Sappho
It has also obliged us to lie to ourselves—repeatedly and at the highest levels of discourse—about the compatibility between religious faith and scientific rationality. Our competing religious certainties are impeding the emergence of a viable civilization. Religious faith—faith that there is a God who cares what name He is called, faith that Jesus is coming back to earth, faith that Muslim martyrs go straight to Paradise—is on the wrong side of an escalating war of ideas.

Helena
Worse still, religion raises the stakes of human conflict much higher than tribalism, racism, or politics ever can, as it is the only form of in-group/out-group thinking that casts the differences between people in terms of eternal rewards and punishments. One of the enduring pathologies of human culture is the tendency to raise children to fear and demonize other human beings on the basis of religious faith. Consequently, faith inspires violence.

Flowers Flower

Plant revolution
130 million years ago

This may sound strange, but flowers are a quite recent invention. There have been land plants for 465 million years, yet there were no flowers for over two-thirds of that time. Flowering plants only appeared in the middle of the dinosaur era. The equally-familiar grasses appeared even more recently. The oldest fossil grasses are just 70 million years old, although grass may have evolved a bit earlier than that.

See other: History of Life

Ahead of Existentialism

‘Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?’

– John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674) Book X, 743-5