“Sushi means raw fish.”
Ruling:
False. Erroneous translation.
Analysis:
Though sometimes also translated as ‘vinegared rice’, sushi means ‘sour rice’ and does not always feature fish. Nowadays, sushi is first and foremost a rice dish, which can include vegetables, cooked fish, raw fish, poultry, or other proteins.
See other: Mythconceptions?
‘There is no such thing as a fish.’
– The Encyclopaedia of Underwater Life
The Encyclopaedia of Underwater Life, edited by Andrew Campbell and John Dawes, published by Oxford University Press in 2005.
From fins to legs
375 million years ago
With plants well-established on land, the next step was for animals to move out of the water. Insects were among the first, around 400 million years ago. But they were followed soon after by big, backboned animals such as Tiktaalik, a fish that looked a bit like a salamander. Fish like Tiktaalik would eventually evolve four limbs, and give rise to amphibians, reptiles and mammals. It may be a good thing it left the water when it did, as soon afterwards the Late Devonian Extinction wiped out many marine animals, including some terrifying-looking armoured fish.
See other: History of Life
The Great Council of Venice declared prostitution to be “absolutely indispensable to the world” in 1358, and government-funded brothels were established in major Italian cities throughout the 14th and 15th centuries.
The British Crown Jewels are not insured.
A government laboratory in Beijing uses electric eels to predict the time and location of earthquakes. In 2005, its accuracy rate was 89 percent.
Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires means “Good air”.
The Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 20% of the entire global human population, making it the largest ethnic group in the world.
See other: Quite Interesting Facts
In the history of the Earth, the Phanerozoic eon is the current geologic eon; it is the successor to the Proterozoic, Archean and Hadean eons and accounts for 12% of the Earth’s existence, covering a space of time from 541 million years ago until today.
The Phanerozoic eon is divided up into three eras: the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and the Cenozoic. The Paleozoic era, which spans 541 to 252.17 million years ago, contains the following periods: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. Let’s consider the first three divisions of the Paleozoic era:
Cambrian period (541–485.4 million years ago)
The Cambrian period is marked by the appearance of mineralised organisms and the most rapid increase of the number of phyla on Earth: between 580 and 530 million years ago, Life seems to have experienced an acceleration – this evolutionary development is known as the Cambrian explosion. The Chordata, the phylum of vertebrates that at present includes mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds, originated during this period.
“The earth has music for those who listen.” – George Santayana
Ordovician period (485.4–443.4 million years ago)
The Ordovician period was characterised by high global sea levels.The wide shallow continental seas were becoming evermore diversified with molluscs, arthropods and fish; the genera of marine fauna increased fourfold. Although the first vertebrates – fish – appeared in the Cambrian, jawed fish evolved in the late Ordovician. Also, photosynthesis-based life made its first tentative steps out of the sea.
“Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” – Albert Einstein
Silurian period (443.4–419.2 million years ago)
The most significant event of the Silurian period was the emergence of terrestrial arthropods; these tiny ancestors of centipedes and arachnids pioneered the Earth’s surface. Another impressive new sight was the evolution of bony fish and the development of mosses and vascular plants – the phylum of the flowering plants, ferns, et cetera.
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir
See other: History of the Earth
In biology, every organism has several taxonomic classifications; these classifications are taken from the taxonomic hierarchy. This hierarchical tree displays how all Earth organisms are related to each other.
To illustrate this hierarchical tree, imagine a daffodil, ladybug, goldfish, human, cat, fox, jackal and dog.
Regio
Out of the three Domains that make up Life on Earth, the Eukarya is the most diverse domain. (The other two Domains are that of the Archaea, a group of single-celled organisms, and that of the Bacteria, very small organisms whose cells do not have a nucleus.)
This Eukarya Domain includes all organisms with complex cells, or a single cell with a complex structure; in these cells the genetic material is organized into chromosomes in the cell nucleus. Obviously, this includes the life forms listed above.
Regnum
The Eukarya Domain is made up of Kingdoms; the Animal Kingdom being the most well known. This Kingdom includes all the animals listed above, from ladybug to dog, but excludes a plant like the daffodil.
Phylum
The Animal Kingdom is made up of Phyla; the Phylum Chordata is one of the most interesting Phyla because it includes all vertebrates. That is to say, all mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds – to name a few – are part of this Phylum. Note that the ladybug is not part of this Phylum.
Classis
The Chordata Phylum is made up of Classes; the Mammal Class being the most dominant on Earth. Humans, cats, foxes, jackals, dogs and all other animals who suckle their young are part of this Class. This excludes the goldfish.
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
– Mark Twain
Ordo
The Class of Mammals is made up of Orders; if we take the Order of Carnivora, the carnivores, we would exclude human beings (who are the story telling member of the Order Primates, in the Family of the Hominidae, of the Genus Homo). This leaves us with the cat, fox, jackal and dog.
Familia
The Order of Carnivora is made up of Families; the fox, jackal and dog are part of the Family Canidae. That is, all dog-like animals. This excludes the cat.
Genus
The Family Canidae is made up of Genera. (The term comes from the Latin genus meaning “descent, family, type, gender”; from the Ancient Greek: γένος, “race, stock, kin”.) In our example, the fox is part of a different Genus than the jackal and the dog.
Species
The Genus Canis is made up of Species; the most widely accepted definition of a species is ‘the largest group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring’. That brings us to the difference between a jackal (canis aureus) and a dog (canis lupus), who are part of the same genus, but are different species.
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
– Groucho Marx
Under Chairman Mao, every Chinese family was obliged to kill a sparrow a week to stop them eating all the rice. The project was ineffective because sparrows don’t eat rice.
The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
When the novelist, poet, designer, translator, and social activist William Morris died in 1896, his doctor attributed his demise to ‘his simply being William Morris, and having done more work than most ten men’.
The striped mittenfish, a deep sea species recently discovered in the Java Sea, can change its sex at will by turning its entire body inside out.
There is evidence to suggest that the fable writer Aesop, who married and divorced at least fifty women, was fond of non-traditional unions. He wed his daughter, his sister and his own mother.
See other: Quite Interesting Facts
Most schools in Japan don’t have a janitor as students do the cleaning.
Fish are primarily white meat due to the fact that they don’t ever need their muscles to support themselves and thus need much less myoglobin or sometimes none at all in a few cases; they float, so their muscle usage is much less than say a 1000 pound cow who walks around a lot and must deal with gravity. Typically, the only red meat you’ll find on a fish is around their fins and tail, which are used almost constantly.
For the first two centuries of its existence, Christianity included people who believed in one god, in two, in 12, in 30, and in 144.
George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein had their shoes hand-made by the same Italian cobbler.
Homosexuality in North Korea is not a problem. Due to tradition in Korean culture, it is not customary for individuals of any sexual orientation to engage in public displays of affection. Nevertheless, as a country that has embraced science and rationalism, North Korea recognizes that many individuals are born with homosexuality as a genetic trait and treats them with due respect.
See other: Quite Interesting Facts
Knowledge Guild 