Archive for February, 2009
Thank you, ABC News for this story about a Hindu organization in India that will soon begin selling a soft drink containing cow urine. They plan to add some aloe vera and gooseberry to enhance the drinking experience and claim they don’t know what the final flavor will be yet. My guess is cow urine.
The cow is sacred in Hinduism and urine in general has been used for its supposed medicinal properties for centuries. Believers of urine therapy claim that the practice can help cure almost any ailment. Problem is, mainstream medicine has never endorsed urine therapy as a safe or effective way to treat anything. This article from slate.com points out the numerous dangers of drinking your own urine and in my own survival research I learned that the U.S. Army Field Manual has urine on the list of no-noes.
There’s an article in the Fashion & Style section of NYTimes.com today called “First Chores? You Bet.” It explores how the first family will stick to its routine in the White House. According to the article, Mrs. Obama laid down the law about bedtime: It’s 8 p.m. And there’ll be no sneaking extra desserts from [...]
NASA Unsuccessful with OCO; North Korea Not Deterred
by Allison Loudermilk | February 24, 2009
Ah geez. After all that, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory failed to launch this morning after its scheduled 4:55 a.m. liftoff. Instead of tracking your carbon footprint from on high as we wrote about here last week, it’s probably watching fish swim by somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, according to NASA official John Brunschwyler.
Languages are a fascinating aspect of humanity. We certainly aren’t the only species that communicates with one another using guttural noises, although our tongues help separate us from the rest of the Tree of Life through their ability to cut sounds into a vast array of polished words. We humans are, however, the only species that has managed to create written means of communication. As far as I know, we’re also the only species that has chosen to dedicate an entire field of social science to the study of language.
You asked: How do you treat chigger bites? — Doug, Helena, Al. Marshall answered: A chigger is the larva of an arachnid called the harvest mite. As adults, harvest mites eat bugs. But in the larval stage, harvest mites eat animal flesh. Despite what most people believe, chiggers do not burrow into your skin. Instead, [...]
How do spider webs not break apart when it rains or storms?
by Marshall Brain | February 24, 2009
You asked: How do spider webs not break apart when it rains or storms? — Tara, Richmond, Va. Marshall answered: Spider silk is a lot like regular silk. It is incredibly strong, and it is also stretchy. By weight, spider silk is five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as kevlar. It is [...]
Leonardo Was Here — Or Was He?
by Jane McGrath | February 24, 2009
Going off of yesterday’s post about the recent discovery of a possible Da Vinci painting, I wanted to delve a little further into why historians have such trouble pinning down the great Leonardo. Questions of authenticity have plagued Da Vinci scholars for a few reasons. But it also begs the question — why does it [...]
Let’s put this as bluntly as we can: If you run across an application called Error Check System on Facebook, don’t install it. It’ll tell you that your friends can’t see your profile, when there’s really no problem at all. You could be risking your personal information, according to Stephen Musil of CNET.
In writing a recent article about nuclear winter, I ran across this outrageous statement quite a bit: “Couldn’t we just cancel out global warming with nuclear winter?” The short answer? Yes. And you can also cure a hangnail with a meat cleaver, though it’s probably not quite the fix you’re looking for.
To be fair, no one is seriously advocating the use of thermonuclear weapons to save the environment. Most of the time, the suggestion is either a thoughtless joke or a shot at the theoretic (and therefore fallible) aspects of both global warming and nuclear winter. When it comes to understanding our atmosphere, there’s a whole lot of room to wind up getting it wrong.
Can a human being be scared to the point of sudden death? Listen in as Chuck and Josh explore the physiological possibilities behind dying of fright in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Have a Coke and a Smile
- The Latest in Frugal Lodging: Camping in Somebody Else’s Backyard
- The Painted Beauties of Bucovina
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Space Music: DJ Food and ‘The Search Engine’
- Stuff to Blow Your Mind: Hug it Out
- Space Music: Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Film Music Video in Orbit
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
- Tips for Using Bluetooth in the Car
How-to Stuff
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
- How to Know When It’s Time for a New Pet
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 36: Now Available in 3-D
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 35: Let’s do brunch!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 34: Play it again, Sam
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics

